Images

A Red Knot C. c. roselaari captured at Gray's Harbor with a metal band on its right leg. Photo credit: Zak Pohlen, USFWS

A Red Knot Calidris canutus roselaari standing on the beach at Gray's Harbor.   Photo credit: Zak Pohlenm, USFWS

Kevin Mulligan coordinates the end of the first shad trail in the Palisade Entrance study, a DOE funded study investigating the efficiency of a novel fishway entrance.

Kevin Molongoski (left) and Steve Walk (right) seine adult American shad back into the Burroughs Ponds (resting/exercising pools) following the completion of trial through the Palisade Entrance.

The Palisade Entrance, a novel fishway entrance, was constructed and tested at the Conte Lab's Fish Passage Complex.  Trials were conducted with multiple species, including American shad, to determine entry rate under a variety of hydraulic conditions.

Stephanie Egger smiles for the camera with her Bird Safe Philly program supplies. 

Kevin Molongoski (fore) carries a tagged adult American shad from the fish truck to the Burroughs Pond in the Conte Lab's Fish Passage Complex.  Kevin Mulligan (back) prepares another passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag.

This is the set up of the solar panels at Blackwater National Wildlife Preserve that will be used to power the newly installed sap flow sensors on site. These solar panels will decrease the number of required trips to the site to change batteries and will contribute to the undisturbed data flow from the sensors.

Steve Walk makes final adjustments to innovative oxygen delivery system recently installed on FPDA team's fish truck.

Close up of the newly installed sap flow sensors at Blackwater National Wildlife Preserve. These sensors were installed by EESC's Justine Neville and Ken Krauss of the USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center in Lafayette, LA. These sensors will be used to analyze how the trees in a marsh ecosystem respond to changing ecological and climatic conditions.

A pair of Canada Geese forage with their two newly hatched goslings on Eastern Ecological Science Center's campus on Patuxent Research Refuge. 

Marty Garcia and Sam Parker begin installing the timber boards for the 30' x 10' raised bed of a pollinator garden behind the orchard at the USGS Conte Lab.

EESC USGS Mendenhall Fellow Justine Neville installing sap flow probes at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge with USGS colleague Ken Krauss from USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center in Lafayette, LA. Sap flow probes will be used to monitor transpiration rates in coastal forests to assess the water usage of trees experiencing stress from inundation.

Justine Neville and Brendan Crossman, USGS scientists at EESC, assembling scaffolding for solar panels at Blackwater National Wildlife Preserve. These solar panels will charge the batteries of the newly installed sap flow sensors on site.

Pictured is a federally endangered Shenandoah salamander (Plethodon shenandoah). NEARMI has been working for years to study this species in hopes to protect it from extinction. To learn more about the research being done on this species, visit https://www.usgs.gov/nearmi. 

Black basses (Micropterus spp) are enigmatic North American sportfishes that support the most economically valuable freshwater sport fishery in the United States and serve as keystone predators within aquatic ecosystems.

Close-up of an invasive blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) specimen collected during fieldwork in the Nanticoke River system to assess impacts of this invasive species on aquatic resources in the region.

Micah Kieffer, John Burns (volunteer), and Ted Castro-Santos performing final preparations on the 23 foot Commander for service in the initial year of EESC's Delaware River shad study.

Sunrise on the power canal adjacent to the S.O. Conte Research Laboratory in late February.

Micah Kieffer, EESC sturgeon biologist and a member of NOAA's sturgeon recovery network, returns to the S.O. Conte Research Laboratory with a young adult Atlantic sturgeon that was found on the shore in Reverse, Massachusetts in February of 2022.  Fish is scheduled for necropsy in the days to come.

With the willing help, and creative problem solving skills of roughly 20 volunteers throughout the day,  these two structures emerged. Bolts were tightened down, people quickly figured out what needed to happen and by the end of the day two Hoop House structures were up and almost ready for the clear sheeting that will cover them.